Faithfully Fighting

I had a good meeting with my doctor yesterday.  I am torn about how much information you guys really want to have, but here goes.  The new diagnosis is officially Stage IV Metastastic Breast Cancer.  He said our new goals are quantity and quality of life.  I will be finishing up the IV Antibiotics on Sunday (by the way the infection really looks all cleared up).  Next Tuesday I have a minor surgery to put in my medi-port for easier IVs.  Next Thursday I will have another chemo treatment.  My treatment is changing.  I will be getting the chemo drug Taxol as well as the biologic response modifier Herceptin.  These drugs work together to suppress the cancer.  Herceptin is relatively new, but has shown excellent suppression in Her-2 positive cancers, which mine is.   I will get the chemo every week for 12 weeks.  I will have another CT scan in about 2 months to see how the liver spots are responding.  We will pray for shrinking or disappearing (that would be a wonderful miracle).

Questions some people have asked me:

Surgery:  They cannot do surgery on the liver.  It isn’t possible because there are 5 spot  (the largest being 2cm-pretty small) and they are in different lobes.

Second Opinion:  My doctor is very happy for me to get a second opinion on my treatment options.  He even volunteered to call Johns Hopkins and set it up for me. He doesn’t think it will change anything but he often happily works with other major oncology hospitals on treatments for local residence.  He told me to just give him the word.  I on the other hand don’t really feel like traipsing all over the place to get similar, or the same information I’m getting from my doctor.  I feel confident in his knowledge, even though he’s only been in this practice 5 years he did his residency at the Mayo Clinic.  He is going to Hopkins next weekend to a Breast Cancer symposium, 2 months ago he was in California meeting with the top oncologists in the field of Breast Cancer (I know that because he called to check on me after my surgery before he left).  He isn’t a one way guy, he talks about lots of choices and if this doesn’t respond we’ll do this.  I’m comfortable with him right now, if that changes I’ll let you know.

I’m sorry I’m not funny or upbeat today.  I will confess that the last two weeks have been hard on me and I am weary.  The Lord is good and his words comfort me, but when we are together in prayer I sometimes express my frustrations to Him.  My earthly self is angry and confused and although I try to separate myself from that and look to the Lord, I haven’t always succeeded this week.  His plan is elusive to me right now and I am trying to move past my selfishness to walk in His way, but failing miserably at this moment.

Hopefully this will be a marathon, not a sprint and I will reach my comfortable stride.  I think it is just because of the infection throwing in the curve and my daily trips to the hospital without a break that I’m feeling overwhelmed.  Once the treatment and real life starts to settle into a pattern I think my emotional responses will settle too.   I miss Katie here for more than 2 hours, I miss church, I miss work, and I miss going through the day without looking through a benadryl haze. 

Wow, this is a depressing blog.  I’m so sorry!!  I’ll stop writing now.

God Bless,

Lynn

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